FF Cooking Club….What’s On The Menu This Week!

Hi everyone! If you are new to this blog, and haven’t read what FF Cooking Club is all about, please refer back to my prior post, FF Cooking Club.

This week I picked 4 dishes that are healthy, tasty, quick and easy to make. If you are just starting off learning how to cook and the thought of making 4 weeknight meals is overwhelming or not feasible for your busy family, try picking 1 or 2 meals or spread the meals out over 2 weeks. Happy Cooking 🙂

A Few Tips Before You Begin:

If you decide you do not want to cook all 4 meals, when you print the shopping list, just cross out the row associated with the meal you do not want to cook. I organized the shopping list so you can easily cross off meals and the associated ingredients listed.

When I get home from the grocery store, I place the meat for the Wednesday and Thursday meals in the freezer. The night before I make the meal, I will take it out of the freezer and place it in the refrigerator to defrost.

Everything highlighted in yellow on the shopping list are “Pantry Essentials”. Over time, you won’t have to purchase these items every week because you will have them stocked in your kitchen. That’s when your weekly grocery shopping becomes easier and cheaper!

Read the entire recipe ahead of time before you begin cooking so you know what you need to do.

I recommend doing all the prep work before starting to cook the meal (chop, peel, and get all ingredients ready).

For all you new chefs, read my tips and watch the various YouTube videos for each recipe before you begin cooking. Before you know it, you may just not need my tips anymore!

Clean as you go and leave the last set of dishes for your significant other to clean (we have a rule in our family- if one cooks, the other cleans).

This recipe is SO SIMPLE and the flavors make a simple chicken recipe totally delicious.

I use boneless skinless chicken breast or thighs instead of the chicken drums the recipe calls for just based on preference. Feel free to change it up a little from time to time to fit your tastes!

In the recipe it instructs you to remove the skin from the chicken (JUST DON’T…it is too annoying and not necessary….either buy skinless chicken or keep the skin on because we all know its the best part anyway).

When I first started cooking, it took me forever to get the skin off of garlic until I learned this easy technique- peel and chop garlic.

One of my faves but a bit more technical (it is not hard but just not as simple as other recipes). If you are new at cooking, and only want to try a meal or 2, go with meal #2 above, but I hope to encourage you to test your limits, what is the worst that can happen?!

When scooping out the zucchini, be careful and make your scoops shallow. It is easy to break through the skin and you want to keep the shell of the zucchini in tact.

Chopping onions became so much easier, and actually fun, once I learned this technique- chop onions.

I hope this makes your journey with cooking easier. Please check back for my bi-monthly FF Cooking Club weekday meals. And don’t forget, I would love to hear your comments and feedback! Hope everyone has a great week and happy cooking!!!